[QUOTE=“Rocko, post: 954840, member: 1”]I broke the story on 18th May - http://www.thefreekick.com/board/index.php?threads/liverpool-football-club-2013-14.17555/page-145#post-946166
Other media organisations seem to have picked up on it in the past couple of days.
He’s an excellent prospect, and has been highly touted for some time in Germany, but he’s not the finished article yet.
He wanted to stay at Bayern last summer but Guardiola was fairly adamant that he wouldn’t be getting first team football anytime soon (fairly understandable given the midfield options they have). They sold him to Leverkusen with an option to buy him back but they have to pay a premium to get him back after 12 months, so Leverkusen will get more by selling him this summer than they would if Bayern exercised that clause next summer.
That might explain why he’s moving this summer because he’s only had one season with regular football, and even then Lars Bender was the established holding midfielder at Leverkusen with Rolfes and Castro and Son also featuring most of the time so he was only one of three of four nominal central midfielders which probably made his job easier when he played there. It also meant that he played at full back a bit and even at centre back too I think.
He’s not a particularly energetic midfielder so probably not going to play the Henderson role. I’d guess it’s more an alternative to Lucas or whoever to play with or instead of Gerrard in a slightly deeper role. He’ll probably need a bit of patience though, not just cast aside like Sahin or any number of Liverpool signings who don’t make the grade straight away.[/QUOTE]
Thank you Rocko, it’s safe to say he’s a good prospect but won’t be pulling up any trees just yet so